The Migration of the Story
Re: Telling the Story - The Color Purple

"I imagine good teaching as a circle of earnest people sitting down to ask each other meaningful questions. I don't see it as the handing down of answers."
-Alice Walker

Theoretical considerations of adaptation

When first published in 1982, The Color Purple received some harsh criticism for what its detractors saw as a negative representation of African-American folk culture. Even though some of this criticism was simply reiterated upon the release of the adapted film version, new problems arose which were unique to the new medium.

Throughout the film industry's relatively short history, there have been a large number of novels that have made the transition from print to the big screen. While it appears as though the general public doesn't concern itself with the issues surrounding adaptation, a significant number of scholars do. Some critics claim that the adaptation of the novel works against the uniqueness of the film. In Take Two: Adapting the Contemporary American Novel to Film, Alain Resnais is quoted as saying, "I think that the writer has completely expressed himself in the novel . . . wanting to make a film out if it is a little like re-heating a meal." Joseph Heller is also quoted as saying "I can't think of any film ever adapted from any work of literature that I or other people feel has any quality to it that even approaches the original work of literature that was its source."

Besides the distinction of high and low culture/art inherent in discussions on popular culture, communications theorists have also put forth analyses useful in understanding how a novel may be pulled into another medium.

In Mieke Bal's Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, the author divides her book into three sections: Stories, Texts and Fabulas. Bal also offers a basic definition for some of the primary elements within the discussion of narrative. Bal's breakdown is as follows:

• Text: a finite, structured whole composed of language signs
• Narrative Text: a text in which an agent relates a narrative
• Story: a fabula that is presented in a certain manner
• Fabula: a series of logically and chronologically related events that are caused or experienced by actors
• Event: the transition from on state to another state
• Actors: agents (not necessarily human) that perform actions
• To act: to cause or experience an event
  
  Return Home
  

  ---